One of my customers got a virus from a shrink wrapped USB drive from Costco.

Think about that. Imagine you buy a package of brand new USB drives from a store and there is a virus on one. You use the USB drive to transfer some files from your home PC to your laptop and then to your computer at work.

Suddenly you have infected all three of your computers.

You can read about the MIRC virus on USB Drive from Costco on Windows XP that infected my customer here.

I had written a couple of articles on:

How to Not Get a Virus

Get Rid of Anti-Virus Programs

The information in those articles is still true, provided companies you trust and depend upon, like Costco, do their job and make sure they are not selling you drives with viruses packaged on them.

That particular drive was made in China, what a surprise.

I cannot prove that the drive came shrink wrapped with the virus, because my customer used the drive to transfer data, so it is possible he got the virus some other way. However, all he does with those USB drives is transfer a database file from work to his desktop and laptop at home. There was nothing else on the drive besides the database file and the virus. The drive was not formatted with the typical CD virtual drive, that is usually on that USB drive. I believe the drive came infected from China.

Anytime you put in a CD, DVD, USB Drive, SD Card or some other data device that automatically starts, you could be at risk of getting a virus.

There is a good article here about Autorun attacks and how to disable AutoRun. I have not tried it.

www.windowssecrets.com/2007/11/08/02-One-quick-trick-prevents-Autorun-attacks

Before putting any removable data media into your computer, be sure you trust the source. Remember, even shrink wrapped packages from reliable companies can have virus. If you have any doubts, check the removable data first.

To check the media, download and make a bootable CD of Ubuntu from Ubuntu.com. Follow the instructions on the website.

This is a Linux operating system with a user interface a look like Windows and the Mac.

An Ubuntu bootable CD is handy to have around. See the article on Ubuntu to the Rescue Boot from CD to Save Hard Drive Data.

Once you boot up Ubuntu, you can put in your removable media. Ubuntu will not autorun, since the autorun is for Windows, not Linux. You can then browse the removable media. Ubuntu will show you all the files, including system and hidden files.

If you see anything suspicious, rename it and move it to an out-of-the-way folder.

You can then use the removable media in Windows.

By Andrew Weitzen (c) 2010

Weitzen is the publisher of several online Internet journals including: InternetHandholding.com, DomainNames.gs, DotNetNuke.bz, Programmer.bz, Software.vg, WebHosting.vg